Kathy Garcia explains the timing for
community input on the
Shores Park.
Photo Tom Sohn.
Click to enlarge.

In January 2017, the City Council approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Winston School for a collaborative shared-use master planning effort with the Winston School and the adjacent Shores Park. Up until that point, the Shores master planning effort, led by the City Council-appointed Shores Advisory Committee, and the Winston Schools master planning effort were proceeding independently of one another. The MOU captured the idea of treating the entire parcel of land as one canvas as opposed to improvements and redevelopment of the Winston School being done separate and apart from the redesign of the Shores Park.

During 2015 and 2016, the Shores Advisory Committee, along with architectural consultant Schmidt Design Group, worked to obtain input and insight from the community and surrounding neighbors on the desired amenities and activities for the Park and to prioritize these amenities and activities based upon overall community interest. This work resulted in three concept diagrams (“bubble diagrams”) for the Park that showed the preferred park amenities, solely contained outside of the footprint of the Winston School.

However, after entering into the MOU, the Schmidt Design Group, along with the Winston School’s architect, OBR Architecture, were task with combining the community’s input on the Park along with the needs of the Winston School and their redevelopment efforts.

On April 12, the Shores Advisory Committee was presented with the results of combining these two master planning activities in the form of three new bubble diagrams. The intent of the new bubble diagrams was to include prior community input and marry it up to the Winston School redevelopment. The diagrams represent three possibilities on what the overall property could look like once complete. The diagrams generally included more amenities for the Shores Park than the previous concept diagrams. All three diagrams shrunk the footprint of the Winston School while typically expanding the footprint of the Park and expanding public use. In addition, all three concepts included some form of parking structure with additional green-park usage on top of the structure. Due to the unique topography of the Shores space, views were considered and generally preserved for neighbors east of the property.

The Schmidt Design Group was scheduled to present these three concept diagrams to the City Council on May 1. In addition, in mid-June, the City will be scheduling an additional community workshop to gain further input from the community allowing the Schmidt Design Group to “cherry pick” the most preferred amenities and concepts from the three bubble drawings and ultimately present a single design to the community and the Council for approval.